


they will tell tales of us

by Artemis1000



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Angry Kissing, Arguing, Enemies to It's Complicated, Episode: s03e04, F/F, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 06:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17420525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: While they are trapped in the besieged nunnery of Wincelcumb, Skade catches Æthelflæd alone to sate her curiosity about the princess for whose rescue Uhtred left behind everything. Æthelflæd is thoroughly unimpressed by her scrutiny but willing to meet her heads on, and might discover far more of herself in the seer than she could ever be comfortable with.





	they will tell tales of us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/gifts).



“You should not be unguarded, Lady of Mercia.”

Æthelflæd turned from inspecting that the kitchen door was still properly barred, her already ramrod-straight back straightening another notch as she laid eyes on the witch lingering by the door and ever so conveniently blocking the only exit from the kitchen that wouldn’t drive her right into the hands of the Danes.

Other Danes, that was, she reminded herself. Travel companion to Uhtred or his prisoner or his curse, Dane Skade would remain – and thus, an enemy to Æthelflæd herself.

“The same could be said about you, witch,” she shot back.

Skade tilted her head slightly, observing Æthelflæd as if she were a particularly juicy piece of meat, or maybe a mouse she had caught and was now dangling by the tail to watch it struggle before the kill. She would have struck Æthelflæd as the kind of woman who liked to toy with her prey even if she hadn’t heard gory stories about the witch’s doing.

Æthelflæd raised her head, feet centering themselves in a posture which was not quite defensive, but ready to shift into one. As she shifted, she felt the weight of her sword and found a sliver of reassurance in it. She was just a shout away from Uhtred and his men but if there was a need to defend herself, defend herself she would and not wait for rescue.

“Do you enjoy watching what is to come for you?” Skade asked in the same uncharacteristically soft voice she had used before – no, Æthelflæd corrected herself, not soft but predatory. This was just a predator’s faux gentleness. “He will drag you out of here and put you back in chains.”

Æthelflæd gritted her teeth against the indignant anger welling up in her, against the knee-jerk desire to deny it, to demand her be silent, go away, leave her in peace or just stop reminding her of what awaited if the siege took its predictable outcome. “Only if I choose to surrender myself,” she said firmly, “if we battle he will find me not easily put in chains. He knows it, or he would have attacked already. He needs me alive to use me against my father – again.”

Skade’s lips curved into something not quite a smile. “Your father, not your husband?” she asked, voice even softer now.

She knew, Æthelflæd realized with a jolt. Of course she would know, she knew everything that Uhtred knew and more. A new wave of bitterness welled up. She gulped hard and forced it down, again. “If you have come here to mock me, you are too late. Haesten has already laid claim to it.”

“Should I?” Skade asked, taking a step towards her.

Æthelflæd matched it with a step of her own. “Should you what?”

“Mock you. Lady.” It was a mere afterthought, to address her so - pointedly.

“It doesn’t matter to me what you say, witch.” To her, the address was no afterthought.

Skade’s eyes flashed. Anger, or amusement? Æthelflæd didn’t dare try to say. She would be dangerous either way. “That’s what they say about you. That you’re not much for words.”

Æthelflæd gave a small snort. “I am, actually. I’m a good negotiator but I know when it’s time to settle things with a sword.”

Interest sparked in Skade’s eyes. Interest, and something like amusement. “That’s more sense than most Saxons speak.”

It wasn’t the first time Skade looked at her like this, but the first time there was more interest than derision in her eyes when she looked at Æthelflæd. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, then decisively turned away from Skade’s piercing eyes under the pretense of inspecting the sorry state the nunnery’s kitchen was in.

When the Danes arrived, the nuns had abandoned it in haste, barely remembering to kill the fires. Pots of soup and bowls of frumenty laid abandoned, carrots and turnips half cut up for soup were still waiting to be chopped. Their livestock was unreachable for them now and likely to be already slaughtered for a Danish feast. Æthelflæd’s jaw tightened. What she saw here was what they had.

“Scared, princess?”

She stiffened again. “Inspecting our provisions,” Æthelflæd responded curtly. “We will need food and water if we are to last a siege.”

Skade stepped right behind her, her hair falling forward and brushing against Æthelflæd’s shoulders as she pretended to inspect their food reserves along with her. “Do you believe Haesten patient enough for a siege?” she scoffed. “He will have grown bored and burned down the roof before morning.”

She turned, didn’t even care that this put her face to face with Skade, who she had never been so close to yet. The witch didn’t back down, either, and Æthelflæd was trapped between her and a table. She stood straight as if she were at court and not close enough to an enemy that she could easily reach up and twist her neck. “You don’t have a very high opinion of Haesten, do you? You don’t have a high opinion of anyone but yourself.”

Skade’s eyes narrowed at her, oh no, she didn’t look like she would back down anytime soon. “It’s not my fault I don’t see any man both worthy and willing to rule.” She tilted her head to the side, pretty mouth curling into the kind of toothy smirk that should come with blood-streaked lips. There was still a smear of drying blood on her cheek from the battle. “They are cowards, and Uhtred runs to your side when you snap your fingers.” Her smile widened a little more. “I’ll admit, I’m a little bit impressed.”

It figured she would make it about Uhtred. Æthelflæd felt a wave of irrational annoyance bubbling up in her, all that frustration of being driven out of her own home, of having to plead for help because her own guard couldn’t be trusted, having to hide behind walls when she ached to just face Haesten and be done with it. “I’m more than Uhtred’s charge, witch!”

“And I’m more than his witch.”

Æthelflæd shot her a too-toothy smile of her own. “Right. You are his prisoner.”

Skade remained quiet for a moment. “Very well,” she said and ducked her head in the tiniest sign of mock surrender.

It felt like an equally tiny victory but Æthelflæd decided to count it a victory all the same. She would take it, she hadn’t been having many of these lately.

“Why are you here?” she demanded.

“You shouldn’t be left alone.” Æthelflæd just kept looking at Skade, unimpressed. Waiting. “I was curious,” she added.

It was likely the first true thing the seer had said to her, Æthelflæd figured. She wondered idly what stories the Danes would be telling of her after Erik, after Beomfleot – after she had killed Sigefrid. She knew what tales the Saxons told. Were the Danes’ tales anything like these, or did they just keep mocking her like they had when she was a prisoner in a cage?

“I’m curious, too.”

Skade gave a sharp bark of laughter. “I thought you knew everything about me, princess.” She reached up, cupping Æthelflæd’s cheek with her hand. Her fingers were cold and calloused. “Am I still full of beauty and guile up close?”

A jolt ran through Æthelflæd. She felt her cheeks heat up under Skade’s icy fingers. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. “Eavesdropping is a revolting habit. I’m unsurprised you would engage in it.”

“Poor princess. You still don’t understand what I’m capable of.”

She dug her nails into the soft flesh of her palms when Skade’s thumb caressed her cheek. “I know that you and your heathen gods hold no power over me.”

“If you say so,” Skade murmured, leaning in closer yet. Æthelflæd could feel her breath on her face, unlike her hands it was hot. Their noses brushed and Æthelflæd’s breath caught in her throat. “Are you going to test your mettle,” she crooned, even softer now, “Lady of Mercia?”

Æthelflæd squeezed her eyes shut. She took a deep breath, another even deeper one. Then she opened them and grasped Skade’s wrist, forcing it down. “I don’t need to prove anything to you, Skade.”

Skade’s hand twisted within her grip, fingers brushing over her wrist. “What about proving it to yourself?”

“You don’t scare me.”

“Good.”

She was close again, far too close for Æthelflæd’s comfort, as her quickening heartbeat could attest. Yet she knew she wouldn’t budge, she wouldn’t have even if there had been anywhere to retreat to. “Do what you must do,” she said, a demand far more than surrender between the defiant lift of her chin and the challenge in her eyes, even as she felt her hold on Skade’s wrist weaken and then give way altogether. The seer wasted no time to return her icy fingers to exploring Æthelflæd’s face. It was gentle, and Æthelflæd shivered under her touch. “But make it fast,” she added, forcing strength back into her voice though it wished to shake. “I have a siege to return to.”

“This place will soon be nothing but another smoking ruin,” Skade murmured. Her voice was a coo as if she were purring endearments. “Haesten will have your guards strung up and the nuns taken captive.” Her fingers trailed up from her cheek to her brow. “Nobody will remember them. Just like nobody will remember you.”

Æthelflæd swallowed hard. It was all she could do under Skade’s touch, she found herself captivated by it – unwilling to return it, yet unable to slap away her hands. “This nunnery has stood for more than a century since King Offa founded it.” Her voice still didn’t shake, though it had grown closer to it. “It will last another hundred years and more. Haesten won’t bring it down.”

Skade hummed. “Be glad if he only razes the nunnery and not Wincelcumb itself.”

“I won’t be glad for the _mercy_ of Danes.”

She made a disgusted noise at the back of her throat and pulled away from Æthelflæd, lips already twisting into a now-familiar snarl. “Then you’re a proud fool just like all these other proud fools who think they can rule.”

“You’re one to lecture me on pride!”Æthelflæd’s hand struck out, grasping Skade by the upper arm and yanking her close again. She couldn’t even say why she would pull her close again when Skade had only just released her, but oh, she resented it, that the Dane would pull away in disgust when she was the one who had forced herself close in the first place. Æthelflæd would not permit it. Her hand tightened on Skade’s arm, fingers digging in as hard as she could. She would not permit it, much like she would not permit her to speak like this.

The seer let herself be drawn in as far as Æthelflæd pulled her and then some more; lips hovering against Æthelflæd’s, chest pressed against chest. Her body burned with heat. “I could lecture you on many more things.”

Her skin crawled. Guile; she had warned Uhtred of her guile. “I don’t want your poison!”

“You would want it,” Skade purred, “if you understood my gift.”

Æthelflæd closed her eyes to the beauty and guile she had cautioned Uhtred against, she turned her head away from Skade’s lips that were far too close to her own for comfort. “Don’t,” she breathed. She grasped the edges of the table behind her, holding on for dear life as everything else was yanked out from underneath her feet.

“You’re not a woman content to serve others, Æthelflæd.”

A bitter laugh escaped her before she could remember that she wasn’t going to talk to Skade anymore. “Says the one who is a tool to men.”

Skade yanked her head back and the first thing Æthelflæd saw when she opened her eyes in alarm was Skade glaring at her with undisguised fury. “Don’t you berate me for seizing power in what way I can!” Her lips twisted bitterly. “No army will follow a seer. They will only follow a warrior, who follows his seer.”

“Do all seers spread their legs for their warriors?” Æthelflæd spat right back, unwilling to let herself be outdone even in this. If Skade wanted to cut deep, she would cut deeper.

Yet, all she got for her efforts was a mocking laugh. “Why, Æthelflæd, are you jealous?”

She gritted her teeth. “No.”

“Would you like me to be yours?” Skade leaned in close again, lips hovering over hers. Brushing against them. “Do you wish I would be your seer?”

She thought of all that Skade was said to give the man she served and felt her face burn even hotter with fury, with desire, with the taste of Skade so close but impossibly far out of her reach. She turned her head away once again. “I won’t be another one of your puppets, witch.”

Lips pressed against hers, hot and demanding, and when she parted her lips to protest, a tongue just as scorching hot thrust into Æthelflæd’s mouth. Her face framed by strong, cold hands, she felt herself trapped in the kiss, forgetting that she still had hands, still had a sword – wanting to forget, maybe. Skade’s kiss burned her, staked a claim uncontested until Æthelflæd remembered herself and kissed back with equal fervor.

Skade hissed a laugh against her lips and then she pulled back, smiling wide. “You have the will to conquer. But you do not own me.”

Æthelflæd wiped her lips with the back of her hand, though she did not think she would ever be able to rid herself of the taste and feel of Skade’s kiss. She brushed her embarrassment aside, this was not the time to show weakness. “And you don’t own me.”

They stood, facing another, seizing another up.

Slowly, sounds from outside the kitchen filtered through to Æthelflæd again, the many harsh, Danish voices of the men laying siege to them uncomfortably close just one wall away. Then quieter, muffled through walls and doors, the voices of the defenders gathered deeper within the nunnery.

Skade traced her fingers over her lips as if she were savoring the memory of the kiss. For a moment it looked as if she would reach for Æthelflæd again, yet she dropped her hand instead and shook her head slightly. “Remember that, Lady,” she murmured.

Æthelflæd opened her mouth to ask her what exactly she ought to remember. She snapped it shut instead, jaw clenched tight. Whatever the answer would be, she was certain she wouldn’t want to hear it. That seemed to always be the case with Skade’s questionable truths.

For a moment they waited; both waiting for the other to make the first step.

Skade broke the standoff with a scoff. She turned her back on Æthelflæd, sauntering away and pausing once only she had reached by the door, turning and giving Æthelflæd a long, measuring look. “Maybe saving you won’t be a waste of my time, Lady of Mercia.”

Once again, Æthelflæd met and held her gaze. It was all she could do right now, when she didn’t know of a single thing she could say in response. So she held Skade’s gaze until the seer broke it first.

Skade left without another glance, without another moment of hesitation.

Æthelflæd stayed behind alone.

She shook herself and gave the door another cursory look, just to make sure Skade hadn’t come in here with nefarious intentions that had nothing to do with Æthelflæd herself, and forced her feet to take her to the door as well.

They were still besieged. She had responsibilities for all the men and women whose lives were at risk because of her.

Even as she returned to their side, she felt Skade’s lips on her own, and she could have sworn she felt the witch’s eyes burn into her back until Skade surrendered herself.


End file.
